Suspected bomb ‘elaborate hoax’

A VEHICLE driven to a police station in Londonderry contained an elaborate hoax device made to look like a car bomb, a senior officer has said.

Police said an obvious line of inquiry was that dissident republicans were behind an incident in the city where a delivery driver was hijacked by masked men at gunpoint and made to drive to Waterside police station on Sunday night.

Chief Superintendent Nigel Goddard said a security operation following the hijacking had caused “massive chaos” in Derry, which included some children unable to get to school and disruption to access to Altnagelvin Hospital.

The incident comes just days after police said they believed the New IRA could be responsible for an incident in which two officers escaped injury after their car was targeted in a bomb attack.

Mr Goddard said: “At approximately 10.30pm last night three masked men hijacked a delivery driver in the Curryneirin area of the Waterside.

“They placed an object in the back of his car and told him to drive to Waterside station, and to abandon the car there. Which he did.

“It is an elaborate hoax device, meant to look like a car bomb. There seems to be a petrol canister with a pipe attached to it.

“Obviously that has caused considerable disruption across the area and needs to be condemned as reckless and futile.”